Waiting for the tech media bubble to pop

The signal to noise ratio of tech media is only getting lower. Though we get more of everything, or, perhaps, because we get more of everything – websites, blogs, videos, and all that – it gets harder and harder to make sense of this landscape. We’re in the middle of a tech media bubble and perhaps don’t realise how dense it is is.

The number of people employed in ‘Internet publishing and broadcasting’ has doubled from 2011 to early 2016, in less than 5 years. And that’s only in America. Of course, this data isn’t tech media-specific, but I assume our particular industry is no exception.

The internet is overflowing with new IT publications, some niche, some aimed at the general public, some – blatant ripoffs of well-known magazines. I recently stumbled upon an old Arstechnica clone that somehow still hasn’t gone out of business. Good for them, but I don’t see how this is good for the consumer or for the industry as a whole.

A lot of these tech websites are hard to tell apart. They have the same ‘geeky-futuristic-videogamey’ aesthetic, they review the same phones (and, let’s be honest, not much else), they release speculative articles with no actual content to get clicks. And don’t even get me started on youtube tech channels...

There’s just so much noise and repetition. Makes me wonder:

A) Have we reached peak tech journalism? It’s definitely a bubble, but when will it burst and why is this yet to happen?

B) This oversaturation is not healthy for the industry. What damage has it already done and what will its long-term impact be?